Ordos Museum / ///byn

Chinese calligraphy is mainly based in three characteristics: status of mind, line and color. These tree concepts triggered ///byn original ideas for the Ordos Museum. A primary impression of non-organization is quickly overcome by a self-organized logic. Here, the museum volumes have found their own space in the park. The logics of placement come from many different aspects: orientation, functionality, targeted visuals, public space, creating a unique orchestrated sequence of spaces. More images and project description after the break.

The inhabiting/space populating logic in Inner Mongolia is grouping. Local herds of camels and horses are being used to browse the steppe in search for comfort. This comfort was only fulfilled when they would arrive to a decision to settle in the landscape. In the same manner, the always present clouds populate the inner Mongolian sky: groups of rounded and cotton locking clouds spread at the intense blue sky. Finally, the original nomads will settle their yurts following a constellation.

Weather has a big impact on Inner Mongolia as it merges everything together. Winds blurs nature and manmade aspects of the environemnt. Grasslands wrap the landscape entirely both in rural and urban scapes. Water erodes the land creating grooves in the soil and rocks and, more importantly; Architecture is tightly blend to the nature by being inspired in its morphologies. T.C.A.O MUSEUM doesn’t block the river park but on the contrary it expands it and makes it more accessible: It works as a hinge between the urban axis on the west and the river park on the east. It combines a south-oriented public space dedicated to the citizen’s social activities with a North nature-preserved park. It allows the water and the views towards the water flow along a new slope

T.C.A.O MUSEUM doesn’t dialogue with the landscape in a unique way. There is a constant play between the background (river / park) and the figure (museum) Sometimes the museum rests on the park, some others it sinks within; it evens buries inside. The consequence is that the architecture frames the landscape and transforms it, bringing it to this river front the status of a Landmark/destination in Ordos.